


Red Right Hand

by le_chat_vilain



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Peaky Blinders - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 00:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3670611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_chat_vilain/pseuds/le_chat_vilain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introducing Thomas Shelby. </p>
<p>Rated T for explicit language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Right Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request through my Tumblr for "just write me anything Tommy Shelby/Peaky Blinders" so I wrote a little drabble of what was going through Tommy's head in that first scene we see him in in episode one.

They scattered before him as he rode the black stallion slowly down the filthy street. Scarpering into their homes, they drew shut the curtains yet still dared to peek a look at him. Children cowered behind barricades, fearing him enough to hide but not enough to quash the curiosity they held for him.

They should be afraid. He was Thomas fucking Shelby, and he owned this town.

He didn’t get here to this point without a lot of hard work, dedication, and of course, blood. It wasn’t the way he’d planned it but with a brother like Arthur there was always going to be blood. The war had changed them both. Where he’d become harder, craftier, his brother had developed an ever quicker temper and a near insatiable pension for violence, his fuse so short he may as well have been the bomb itself. The trick was knowing when to let Arthur off his leash. Arthur was really the one to fear, but the people of Birmingham knew who held his puppet strings.

The master puppeteer for an entire neighbourhood, that was Tommy Shelby. He made it look so easy to them, but with power comes the burden of responsibility. They didn’t know he was the one keeping the Lee boys off their streets, out of their homes, out of their purses and shop tills. They didn’t know what that cost him, both from his pocket and his soul.

To them, he was a king. A god. Terrifying. Infallible.

If only they knew what lurked under that peaked cap, beneath the impeccable three piece suit, and crisply starched and ironed shirt. If they ever looked into his baby blue eyes, really looked, they’d see it. Underneath it all, he was a fucking mess.

A cunning, ruthless, devastating mess.

That was Tommy Shelby.


End file.
